Exhibition & Artwork Launch

Ardgillan Gallery present a solo exhibition “Sing for your Supper” by Rory Tangney in the main gallery rooms and “Dividing up the Sky” an outdoor artwork by Mark Beatty. Please join us for the opening on Saturday 18th at 12pm in the main gallery space on the lower ground floor. The exhibition and artwork will continue to 6th April 2025.

Rory Tangney is an artist based in Dublin, primarily creating three-dimensional work. He has exhibited widely, most recently with a solo exhibition at the LAB Gallery Dublin, in 2022 – the culmination of the Sculpture Dublin Experiment Award which he received in 2021. He has presented work in numerous galleries and other settings, including Visual Carlow, Limerick City Gallery, Uilleann West Cork Arts, Galway arts Centre, RHA, Rua Red, National Concert Hall, as well as RTE Lyric FM. Tangney was awarded an Arts Council Bursary in 2023, and an Agility Award in 2022. Residencies include Tyrone Guthrie Centre, Fire Station Artist Studios and Drawing Room, London.

Over the past number of years, Tangney had been creating work that explored themes of climate change, environment, religion, and science fiction. However, personal experiences began to permeate all aspects of the work, leading him to shift focus and address those experiences more directly. This body of work emerged from a period of healing from difficult formative experiences. It aims to deconstruct the emotional and psychological impact of trauma, attempting to acknowledge and own the emotions of trauma that can be profoundly debilitating if left unaddressed.

Tangney employed his characteristic experimental approach to materials in the development of this work. Intuition and a non-linear creative process are central to his practice, guiding the work to unexpected places throughout its creation. This approach continues through to the exhibition’s installation, where numerous creative decisions are made in response to the gallery space. Each piece reaches its full resolution only within the context of the exhibition.

A strong aesthetic of decay and chaos runs throughout the work, with the human figure taking a central role. This aesthetic reflects the complex facets of identity and the process of deconstructing the self, followed by reconstruction and reimagining — a necessary step to move forward.

Mark Beatty – Dividing Up The Sky

In recent years, Beatty has completed three residencies in the West Cork Arts Centre: Drift Junkie / The Things We Threw Away (2018), I Can’t See The Paper from the Wood from the Trees (2020) and The Purple Road Project (2024). He has participated in the Skibbereen Arts Festival in 2022 with the help of the West Cork Arts Centre on the site specific work, We Worship at the Temple. His work has been included in group exhibitions in the LAB, TBG&S and The Douglas Hyde Gallery. He lives and works in West Cork.

Drawing excites Beatty. For him it is an endeavour where possibility is framed by practicality. It is at the core of everything he makes. It provides an antidote to his anxieties about the past and future; it is a mantra, a way to regain control, the moment, a line at a time. Performing the same series of tasks, he find myself somewhere between the toil of rhythm and the indomitable joy of dancing. Exploring this conundrum using and reappropriating the materials present in his life, he make ritual out of repetition in pursuit of magic, meaning and the unknown. His work considers our relationship to materials, the space they occupy in the world and seeks a place outside of established norms. He tries to blur the edges of our perceived reality to see if it there is anything else there; to make what is familiar unknown and unknown familiar.

For Ardgillan Gallery, Beatty has produced a five by five metre banner to sit between two flagpoles. Originally a geometric drawing it was created by dividing a square to form a grid and coloured using the colours of the visible light spectrum. It is a reflection on both light and on shape.

Lower Ground Floor, Ardgillan Castle
Opening Hours: Wed – Sun, 10am to 4pm

Supported by Arts Council of Ireland and Fingal Arts Office